If you're installing a lot of packages, possibly in part as a result of recursive installs of dependencies, you may not know what all packages have been installed ... as they fly by. You could figure it out "by hand" but that could be tedious. In this kind of situation I like to do the installation inside of a script(1) session. That makes it easy to go back and look at everything that happened, including any messages displayed.

If you're installing a lot of packages, possibly in part as a result of recursive installs of dependencies, you may not know what all packages have been installed ... as they fly by.

While script(1) is a very handy tool which can be used to determine what packages have been installed, pkg_info(1) provides the same information more succinctly; no need to sift through the reams of output collected by script(1)(1).

While script(1) is a very handy tool which can be used to determine what packages have been installed, pkg_info(1) provides the same information more succinctly; no need to sift through the reams of output collected by script(1)(1).

I agree that pkg_info is the preferred and direct method for getting the info in question. But that does assume that you know what packages have been installed, doesn't it? The point I was trying to add is that sometimes a lot of stuff gets installed recursively as dependencies, and unless you're a speed reader with photographic memory you may not know all of which packages were installed on this occasion. script helps me deal with that. As a side-benefit the install messages are right there. Of course, you don't have to read them from the typescript, you could note which packages had messages and then read them with pkg_info, but that would be a bit too circuitous for me.

I agree that pkg_info is the preferred and direct method for getting the info in question. But that does assume that you know what packages have been installed, doesn't it?

No, issuing pkg_info(1) with no arguments will display a complete list of packages installed in /var/db/pkg.

Quote:

The point I was trying to add is that sometimes a lot of stuff gets installed recursively as dependencies, and unless you're a speed reader with photographic memory you may not know all of which packages were installed on this occasion.

...& issuing pkg_info(1) with no arguments provides a list of everything which has been installed through pkg_add(1) -- either directly or indirectly as dependencies.

LeFrettchen , it's not about listing *installed* packages but *the_just_recently_installed* ones as dependencies to the package that was targeted with pkg_add ..
so Idop is RIGHT :-) and script helps here in case of errors or something not only because one needs to know a package dependencies (ocicat already made it clear how to)

@ LeFrettchen : Thanks for your input. It may be a bit confusing because, due to the changing direction of discussion in this thread, the issue on this point was split over to a new thread here. Hopefully that will clarify much.

...it's not about listing *installed* packages but *the_just_recently_installed* ones as dependencies to the package that was targeted with pkg_add ..

Now wait a minute, daemonfowl. Your initial question in this thread was, & I quote verbatim:

Quote:

Sometimes when installing packages I overlook post-install messages of importance .. is there a way to show them back by -for instance- pkg_name or something ?

No where in that question is any mention of dependencies. You asked about getting post-install messages. pkg_info(1) addresses that question as has been pointed out by jggimi, myself, & LeFrettchen. What you are now parroting is the digression IdOp introduced which was the reason for splitting the thread.

The hijacking train was leaving the station, & you weren't going to let it get away without being on it?